About

Crossguard Lightsaber is a fictional weapon which projects three beams of bright energy from a metal hilt, resembling a sword with a crossguard. After the lightsaber was revealed in a promotional trailer for the 2015 science fiction film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the design became a subject of parody for its perceived impracticality.

Origin

On November 28th, 2014, a teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released on the Movieclips Trailers YouTube channel (shown below). In the trailer, a hooded Sith Lord is shown activating a large lightsaber with two more miniature blades emerging from the hilt at a 90 degree angle, resembling the crossguard^[9] built on to European swords.

Spread

On November 28th, Redditor Couchsurfing_Rapist posted an Imgur gallery featuring parody lightsaber designs illustrated by users on 4chan's /tv/ (television & film) board (shown below). In 72 hours, the post received more than 4,400 votes (94% upvoted) on the /r/4chan subreddit.^[10]

On November 29th, Redditor i_start_fires posted an animated GIF featuring clips from Star Wars films edited with humorous lightsaber parodies to the /r/StarWars^[11] subreddit (shown below). In 48 hours, the post gathered upwards of 5,100 votes (96% upvoted).

On November 30th, YouTuber Skallagrim uploaded a video in which he discusses the criticisms and defenses of the lightsaber crossguard (shown below).

On December 1st, Redditor gothicmaster submitted an Imgur gallery containing parody versions of the lightsaber to the /r/4chan^[12] subreddit, where it gained over 3,800 votes (93% upvoted) in the first 12 hours (shown below).

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to the lightsaber, including The Verge,^[6] Tech Crunch,^[7] The Daily Dot,^[3] Mashable^[4] and The Washington Post.^[8] On December 2nd, the meme was also the subject of a short segment on The Colbert Report.^[13]

Search Interest

External References